Orchard Facilities Management has teamed up with Brook Business Recovery to offer advice to businesses in Kirklees following a recent spate of data breaches.

Many small businesses are still not doing enough to protect their own data and that of their clients and customers, despite increased awareness of data security issues.

Neil Ewing, technical director of Orchard FM, said: “A lot of small businesses still back up their data to discs and flash drives, despite the reports in the news about big firms who have seen the personal information of their customers fall into the wrong hands.

“It’s not just about keeping your customers’ data safe, it’s also about making sure you don’t lose access to material stored on your computer systems that is critical to the operational success of your business.”

Charles Brook, managing director of Brook Business Recovery in Huddersfield, said his line of work meant he was no stranger to business disasters.

“It’s surprising how many businesses fail because they didn’t have a disaster recovery plan in place – a simple strategy for dealing with the what if situation,” said Mr Brook.

“That disaster management plan should include data protection as well as safeguarding against financial distress,” he added.

Mr Brook said recent stories in the media about high profile data breaches had made him look at his own business recovery strategy. He has since become one of the latest local firms to sign up to Orchard’s Yorkshire data management service, launched last year to protect small businesses against data loss and theft.

“I now have a strategy that means that I don’t need to worry about computer viruses, burglaries, fires, hardware failure or fraud and I have the confidence of knowing that a copy of all of our files, data and even our emails are held on a local secure remote server that can be accessed and recovered within 24 hours in the event of a crisis,” said Mr Brook.

“The modest monthly charge for data storage and security is insignificant compared to the cost of losing all that information and now I know that my business isn’t going to be the next one to fail because it failed to have a disaster recovery plan.”